I finished reading this a little over thirty minutes ago, and have needed time to be able to compose my thoughts to be able to type this. I haven't been this emotional since I read 'Sugar' by Bernice McFadden. I had to read the story of Miriam's Dad slowly so I could sit with each moment of his life, with each of his deep and searching thoughts, unpacking, analysing, thinking, dissecting, with plenty of deep breaths to accompany it all. I'm still very affected by the ending, still breathing deep...

Wow this book was really heartbreaking at the same time it was uplifting and hilarious. Not to be undertaken lightly! But a really beautiful story and nice tribute to her dad. TJ you may like this book!

Original review posted hereLet me just say … I did not enjoy Irma Voth – the fiction novel that Miriam Toews wrote and I reviewed just a few weeks ago. So it was with some trepidation that I picked Swing Low up off my shelf.I was blown away.Seriously, this book was nothing at all like Irma Voth. It was clear, concise, and a beautiful tribute to her father. Miriam’s voice, as she speaks from her father’s point of view, is crystal clear, heart-breaking and filled with love. I never once got the se...

This was quite an amazing book. This (former Mennonite) gal is an excellent writer. In an unusual manner for a memoir, Miriam writes from her father's point of view; it took me a chapter or so to habitually think in the right frame of mind. When "he" writes about his state of mind (he was manic-depressive), it is actually Miriam writing what she surmised his state of mind might well have been. He was such a productive man in his manic phase, a 6th grade teacher, and yet when asked by his daughte...

I came across this book in the original version, written by Miriam Toews, a Canadian author. English is not my native language however I had no difficulty in understanding it and grasping all the emotions. A very peculiar novel, I say novel even though it is written in the form of an autobiography. It’s the daughter, Miriam Toews, who lends the voice to her father who committed suicide at age 62. By lending him her voice she tries to give a possible answer to his tragic death. Memories of a life...

What’s Left After Words?A biography of one’s little known father would seem a risky commercial venture. Make it first person and the rest of the family is likely to resent the presumption. Write it from the perspective of a man with advanced dementia, and total disaster can’t be far distant.And yet Miriam Toews carries it off magnificently. The book, it turns out is only nominally about her father, Mel. Mainly it’s about her coping with what he left behind , namely an apparently inexplicable dec...

Just fantastically sad and brilliant. I love Miriam Toews and I feel so awful for her family to have lost her father at a relatively young age (63-ish?) to suicide. She writes from his point of view after sorting through his many years of notes as an obsessive recorder and manic depressive. I could not put this down.

There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors.

I will make a sign for my doorknob that reads: C’mon in, patient is already disturbed. - Miriam Toews, Swing Low. In her family memoir Swing Low: A Life, Mennonite author Miriam Toews reconstructs the life and death of her father. It is a beautifully written book, yet one dealing with difficult subject matter: mental illness and suicide. Her memoir of her father’s life touches upon the ties of family and community, and the struggle between faith and despair. Mel Toews (Miriam’s father) was a res...

I wanted to read this because I read the author's novel All My Puny Sorrows. The novel deals with family suicide, and I heard that Miriam Toews had experience with suicides in her own family. I ended up liking this book quite a lot more than the novel. This is a biography of her father, which she wrote in the first person, as if she were her father. Her father Mel suffered from manic depression (now called bipolar disorder) from a very young age. He managed to remain relatively happy and functio...

This is a memoir of a man (Mel Toews) who suffered from life long bipolar disorder, commits suicide, and then tells his story from beyond the pale (i.e. beyond the grave). Do I have your attention yet? Obviously he couldn't write his memoir after committing suicide. But his memoir did get written in his own first person voice--by his daughter. The very concept causes me to shutter from its haunted poignancy.The day before his suicide his daughter, Miriam, asked him what he was thinking. His answ...

Miriam Toews wrote this memoir from her father's perspective as a tribute to him after he took his own life. To show the value of his life when he considered himself worthless. While I appreciate what she was trying to do here, and that it was also a means to her own healing, there wasn't as much insight into living with bipolar disorder as I had hoped. I feel like the reader may have garnered more information, and emotion too, if the book was written from her own perspective.

I love Miriam Toews' writing and this was one of my favourite of her books, but I admit to be biased. I wrote more about it on my blog - http://www.claire-cameron.com/completely-biased-reviews-swing-low-by-miriam-toews/

"There are no windows within the dark house of depression through which to see others, only mirrors."I found this to be the most telling sentence of what it must be like to be fully and deeply depressed. This is a lovely tribute to one's father. It's warmly, lovingly and tenderly told, with understanding and compassion. It's beautiful in this context.Mel's story is a remarkable one. His life was successful in every way: a job he loved, a wife he loved, a family he loved, friends he enjoyed.........

Toews is one of my favorites, and when reading this, one really feels the struggle of a family member with manic depression - it's not easy for anyone - the person experiencing it, the spouse and caregiver, the children at any age. As important as this book felt (especially to Toews as she writes this from her father's imaginary perspective), this was incredibly hard to read. Not because it was such a hard subject, but the start-stop of the writing. Toews flips from her father's past to present

The absolute strength of this book is that it feels like Melvin Toews is the one writing it. The voice is clear as a bell as it bounces between the present day where he is hospitalized before taking his own life and the past where he tells the story up to the present. I am constantly amazed and humbled by Miriam Toews' writing. I love her work though the subject matter is not the cheeriest. I think her subjects of mental illness, depression and suicide are vital to discuss in open and validating...

I very much enjoy Toews' fiction, and whilst Swing Low, which is a fictionalised memoir of her father, is a step away from what I am used to in her work, I am pleased to report that it was rather wonderful. The approximation of her father's own voice feels both candid and believable. Very engrossing and darkly comic, thoughtful and moving, Swing Low is ultimately a very loving tribute.

Beautiful portrait of her father, who struggled with manic depression his whole life and committed suicide at 62. "Is depression in part a result of not feeling at home in this world, and blaming yourself for it? Is depression nothing but anger turned inwards, as some say? Does it stem from a childhood loss? From a genetic propensity? From self-hatred? From an inability to be oneself? From having no purpose? From an inability to be free? From a fear of freedom? From the desire to be free and con...

This had to be an incredibly difficult book to write. Miriam, the protagonist's daughter, tried to get into his head and recreate thoughts he might have been having. She began at the end. The prologue is Mel's end. He committed suicide at the age of 62. Having taught school for 40 years, sustained a marriage and a life, hiding mental illness through his work and church devotion, he ended his life before dementia took his mind.The first few chapters confused me a bit. They were circular and diffi...

I won a copy of this book through a giveaway on Goodreads. At the time I received it, I couldn't remember having signed up for it, or why I might have, although after having read the back cover description it seemed fitting that I should win this. I too lost my father to suicide, and Miriam's writing mirrored a lot of what we went through, things my dad said (or didn't say). That same helplessness, the feeling of not being good enough, or not having done enough for the people in his life, was so...